THE LONELY PURSUER.
Arthur Ferris was secluded from all callers in his rooms at the
Fifth Avenue Hotel until late on the morning when a million people
read the "featured" details of the mysterious murder of Randall
Clayton.
Exhausted by the mental struggle with his now defiant wife, he
yet retained enough of his cunning to heed Policeman McNerney's
roughly-given advice.
Ferris' rooms were littered with the score of newspapers over
which he had been busied since daybreak, and his breakfast stood
still untasted at his side. He wavered between his desire for
self-protection and his fear of the hard-featured Stillwell.
In his own heart Ferris cared not a whit whether Clayton had been
waylaid by accidental thugs, betrayed at the bank, duped by some
insidious woman, or slain by an inner conspiracy of the employees.
"The money is gone, the cheques will probably be replaced," he
grumbled. "Damn the company's interests! I am glad of their loss.
The Worthington Estate will probably make it good.
"But I must go over and show up. I cannot afford to be suspected
here. God knows what game is on, with Stillwell now as chief of
scouts!"
He had decided to make a brief visit at the office, and to then
visit Stillwell, and resign his vice-presidency, on the ground of
ill-health. "I'll lay off then, watch the game, keep silence, and
frighten them."
The long, weary hours of the night had brought him one consolation.
As he reached for his hat and gloves, he laughed bitterly. "She
may pay a round price to be rid of me, and then I'll keep all her
secrets as well as mine! A kind of armed neutrality!"
At the door, he was confronted by the grave-faced captain of
detectives. "You are wanted, Mr. Ferris, at once, at the company's
office," sharply said the official, with a comprehensive glance at
the room.
"Stillwell is there, and we wish to take your statement. We propose
to avenge poor Clayton's murder. You were probably the last person
who had a confidential interview with him."
"I know it," frankly answered Ferris, "and was on my way over when
you knocked." The two men soon joined a silent circle of the higher
officials of the company, gathered about Counsellor Stillwell,
in Manager Wade's office. Ferris felt the freezing taciturnity of
the detective on the short walk, and even more the greeting of the
gloomy circle.
Bowing to Stillwell, the defeated schemer said, "Before we begin,
I wish a word with you in private."
"There is to be no privacy here, sir," coldly replied the lawyer,
"save the actions of the police. We are all equally interested in
discovering poor Clayton's murderer.
"As you branded him as a thief, you can, at least, let us all hear
your whole statement now. We have stenographers, a notary, and you
can send for a lawyer if you wish counsel."
"I'll not delay you a single moment," resentfully said Ferris,
springing to a writing table. He handed a few lines to the astonished
attorney, and said, in a ringing voice, "Read that aloud! Let the
secretary give me a written acknowledgment. Then, swear me, and I
will make a voluntary statement."
There was a general murmur of surprise as Stillwell read
the unconditional resignation of Arthur Ferris as vice-president,
director, and special counsel of the Western Trading Company.
In the awkward pause which followed, Ferris remarked boldly:
"I intended to ask for an indefinite leave on account of breaking
health. I shall now remain here, as an ordinary witness, subject
to your orders, and with no other interest than to clear up the
mystery."
In half an hour Ferris had closed his artful disclosures. "Any
matters occurring between the late Mr. Worthington and myself are
confidential as between lawyer and client."
In the circle, Messrs. Boardman and Warner watched with ferret eyes
every movement of the man who only gazed into the faces of enemies.
"That is all, for the present," significantly said Stillwell, when
the chief of police, the head detective, and himself had hurled
the last questions at Ferris.
"I will then retire," defiantly remarked Ferris. "With this
statement to all men, I shall now be mute to all questioners save
the proper authorities. I have turned twenty reporters away this
morning without a word, and the police authorities can reach me at
my hotel, until they have closed their labors. Then my connection
with this company and its affairs terminates forever."
He gazed fiercely at the impassive face of John Witherspoon, and
rising, with a bow of general adieu, stalked into the hall.
But he turned as Boardman, Warner, and Witherspoon, following, drew
him into the room where Clayton had fought out his life struggles.
"You may now deliver us the papers taken from this desk, and so,
escape a prosecution," firmly remarked Boardman. Ferris sat down
at the table and wrote a few lines. Handing the paper to the senior
executor, he said, with a cutting sneer:
"There is my bill for one hundred thousand dollars for legal services
in the last five years for Hugh Worthington. Upon its approval and
payment, I will deliver over all the papers of our long intimacy,
and sign clean receipts.
"I will then stipulate not to approach Miss Worthington in any
manner. Here are all the valueless papers you demand. Will you give
me a receipt for them?"
"You took them surreptitiously! You can well afford to trust our
honor," snappishly said Warner. "Very good," added Boardman. "You
will hear from us, as to your claim, in due time."
When Arthur Ferris' footfall died out upon the stair, Boardman
drily remarked, as he pocketed the bill, "The price of a scoundrel's
silence! Well, we will see! But the fellow really knows nothing of
the murder! Let us go to work, gentlemen."
When they returned to the conference room, below them, on the street,
the deposed favorite of fortune was chatting with a new officer on
the beat.
"McNerney? Oh, yes," grinned the strange policeman. "He has taken
two-months' leave and goes over to see his ould mother, in Oireland.
His home address, sure, I don't know. Mayhap the sergeant can tell
ye."
While the bluecoat sauntered away, Ferris mentally recorded another
mistake. "I should have thrown the hat-box after the hat," he
murmured. "A few hundred dollars would have been well spent. And yet
he is probably in their ring now. His 'leave of absence' indicates
a very sudden return of affection for the 'ould mother.'"
Ferris now decided upon a policy of open frankness and calm
indifference. "There is no one I could have made use of, but that
Jew office boy," he mused, as he sauntered up Broadway, "and they
have bought him out, over my head. I will let my little bill for
"legal services" ripen. I can afford to let my 'legal field' lie
fallow for the summer."
And yet he cursed the memory of the innocent victim of the
mysterious murder. "But for her sentimental hubbub, I could have
easily managed Alice. This fellow's strange death gives him the
halo of martyrdom. He is out of my reach now. The old man must
have feared the 'Iron Gate' of Death! And, after all, his plans
to 'efface' Clayton were only inchoate. I cannot terrify them with
any hearsay projects. I must get what I can, cling to Dunham, and
keep silence.
"The marriage! That means just the one hundred thousand dollars!
I will save it and my good name by submitting in silence."
He signalled a passing carriage and ordered the man to drive him
far "up the road," out of range of the shrill-voiced newsboys,
hawking their "extras," with "Full accounts of the great murder
mystery."
For a brief day the name of Randall Clayton was on every one's lips.
There were hundreds clustered around the morgue, where already the
mute witness who had drifted back under the arch of the Brooklyn
Bridge lay in the gloomy state of death. The hasty verdict of "death
from murder committed by parties unknown," was all the record of
the darkly-veiled happening.
It was a blind trail, after all, which had ended this open and
honorable career in the sight of all men. The electric lights were
throwing fitful gleams upon the black waters whirling past the
Brooklyn Bridge, when the executors, with Witherspoon, gathered
around Miss Alice Worthington in the drawing-room of the Stillwell
residence.
There was also the tired counsellor, who had also vainly probed the
officials of the company, the employees of the Astor Place Bank,
and every reachable occupant of the huge business building.
Poor old Somers, for the hundredth time, had rehearsed his story,
and yet it all ended in a blind trail.
While they talked of the dead, in hushed voices, Policeman Dennis
McNerney was chatting with Emil Einstein over the counter of the
Magdal Pharmacy. The keen-eyed policeman noted the efflorescent
jewelry, and the resplendent garb of the too-prosperous-looking
lad.
Notwithstanding the Jewish boy's sudden prosperity, there were
deeply-marked dark circles about his eyes. The Bowery's delights
were telling upon the frightened lad, who had sealed his glib tongue
now behind lying lips. Flattered by the "cop's" familiar manner,
Emil greedily swallowed the ground bait artfully scattered by the
cool Irish-American.
He reeled off the story which he had told to the inquisitors
of parting in the office with Clayton after Somers had given over
the deposits. Before the two separated, Einstein had forgotten his
Hebrew timidity.
"Let me know if you pick up any items," said McNerney, giving the
lad a ten-dollar bill, with a secret sorrow at throwing good money
away. "My chum, Jim Condon, and I hope to help get this reward into
our Precinct Squad. Come down to-morrow night to the station, and
I'll introduce you. He'll look out for you, and he can write me
and keep on the trail. I take the next Cunard steamer for Queenstown."
Mr. Ben Timmins, as host, drew McNerney into the little back room,
and the three smacked their lips over the "medicinal brandy," which
had been Fritz Braun's pride.
"Where's the boss?" casually demanded the officer. "He went over
to Germany a couple of months ago," volubly explained Timmins. "I'm
cock o' the walk for a few months now. Drop in and see me, on the
d. q."
Two hours later, from a dark angle opposite, Officer McNerney saw
Emil Einstein, with swinging steps, cigar in mouth, speed along
eastwardly.
In plain clothes, his brow covered with a soft hat, the athletic
policeman dashed along, keeping his prey in view. The lightning
change of uniform gave him a clear protection, and in the thirty
minutes of his necessary absence, the mustache which was McNerney's
pride had disappeared.
"Either he goes to his girl, or else to meet the woman of the
carriage," mused the man, who had sworn to reach a portion of the
now heavily increased award. "Once I locate his 'stamping ground,'
I am on the road to success."
It was twenty minutes before the excited McNerney saw Einstein
slacken his determined pace down the Bowery. McNerney's heart beat,
in wild hopes, as the lad, with furtive glances around, began to
linger around the corner of the Dry Dock Bank.
"Is it the ten dollars burning in his pocket?" murmured the excited
man. "Some cheap woman foolery?"
His practiced eye soon told him of the lad's determined purpose.
For, in all the hovering movements, the office boy never left one
or the other front of the bank building.
And none of the loungers, no street waif, no bedaubed siren
lingered in colloquy there in the shadows of the respected fiduciary
institution. "It's a poor fishing ground for the fancy," growled
McNerney, as he suddenly darted forward in pursuit.
A woman, whose gliding walk and shapely voluptuousness of body
indicated the Polish Jewess, paused, and bending her head, without
a word of salutation, listened to the eager lad. The hands of the
two met, in the darkness, and then Einstein sped back into the
glaring Bowery, while the dark-robed woman pursued her way toward
the East River.
"No bad walker," was McNerney's forced conclusion, as he gathered
himself. The unknown had swept around the corner from the south
and turned eastwardly to meet the waiting lad, with the sure gait
of one who knew she was waited for.
On, onward, with undulating lissom swing, the veiled woman sped,
McNerney judiciously regulating his gait. And all her settled purpose
was evident in the measured flight, the head never once turned in
curious gaze, and the singularity of her march.
At last, halting before a respectable-looking tenement-house on
First Avenue, the woman turned into the open hallway and paused at
the door of the lefthand apartment.
In an instant there was a flash of light within, and then the dimly
outlined shadows of a woman moving from behind the linen curtains.
"Fairly run to earth! It's a good night's work!" laughed McNerney.
"Things are going my way at last!" He hastened off and, jumping on
the nearest car, sought his own home by a round-about way. "Now,
Dennis, my boy," he said, as he stuffed his pipe. "One bit of
hurry, and ye are ruined! I have two birds to watch. And I know
her perch, their meetingplace, and the boy's own den!" He now saw
airy castles of Spain gaily rising in the smoke wreaths around him.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will prospect, and I think I'll borrow
Mrs. Haggerty's boy, Dan, to hunt for a tailor in that building.
He is sharp and he can knock at the door by mistake, so I'll get
her general description.
"If the janitor is a fair man to jolly, Dan must then find out his
pet saloon, and I'll make a new friend on the East Side.
"But I must disappear, after I have met this boy Einstein at the
station. I'll have to slip on a false mustache for ten minutes.
Jim Condon can bring him out to me in the dark. He can tell him I
don't care to run up against the sergeant."
On Central Park West there was a circle of astonished listeners,
when Doctor William Atwater had closed the conference by reporting
his inability to trace a single enemy of the murdered man. Counsellor
Stillwell, in a grave reverie, listened and abandoned all present
hope of any clue to the cowardly murder.
"All seems darkness around us, now," he sighed. "The journals, the
police, the detectives, and our own private searches have failed
to locate any suspicion, however fleeting.
"It only remains for us, while awaiting some unravelling of the
mystery, to unite in the fitting burial of the unfortunate gentleman,
when the Coroner has finished his dreary labors. He had not a
single enemy in the world! It was the fatal trust of the vast money
handling which caused his murder. And only after long plotting and
careful daily watch was he foully done to death."
Alice Worthington's clear voice startled each listener as she said,
"There is but one faint clue clinging to the past. A transaction
which might have drawn upon him the vengeance of some one. I have
kept this secret until all else failed.
"Before my father's death, even in those last hours of lingering
agony, he signed a deed as trustee for Everett Clayton, which
transfers to Randall Clayton one-half of the Detroit Depot lands,
or one-half of its purchase price. This money, nearly a million
dollars, goes now into the estate of the dead man!"
"My God!" whispered Witherspoon, as Doctor Atwater grasped both
his hands. "If any one had an interest in concealing that vast
property, we must look for them, for the plot which led to Clayton's
murder. My poor father pledged me to secrecy until I had delivered
the deed and the legal acknowledgment of his property interest to
Clayton. It was for this that my father wished to meet Randall at
Cheyenne--to tell him of the fortune which had come to him!"
The girl's sobbing voice touched every heart as she faltered,
"Judge Downs, at Pasco, drew all the papers and acknowledgments,
and, after my father's death, he explained all the details to
me. But father," she cried, with a gust of stormy tears, "told me
himself of the discovery of the value of this property, and that
he had feared to arouse poor Randall's hopes until the Railway
Company had purchased the land."
Her voice died away; its accent of truth had brought the astounded
lawyers to their feet; but in a corner Doctor Atwater whispered to
Jack Witherspoon, who was shaking as a leaf in a storm.
"Silence, my friend," he murmured. "This makes you a millionaire.
Say nothing to-night. Confide only in Alice. You and I must tell
her, alone, and later, of Clayton's will. If Ferris knew of this,
he is the murderer."
The grave voice of Boardman alone broke the silence. "This is matter
of the gravest moment, and only to be discussed in the future, my
dear child," he said. "Gentlemen, we will suspend all our labors
until we have had ample time for reflection. We may find the
murderer hiding under the shadow of this useless fortune. For I
believe poor Clayton left no heir. Even gold can be useless at the
last."
Witherspoon's temples were throbbing as Doctor Atwater hurried
him away to his home. "There is a mystery of mysteries, my boy,"
sadly said Atwater, "in the strange turn of Fortune's wheel which
throws the millions into Francine Delacroix's pretty white hands.
"Rouse yourself! We must think, act, and avenge our friend! It
looks as if the finger of fate plaits the noose for Ferris' neck.
For he did know all; he hated and betrayed Clayton, and, I believe
that he killed him."
"Yes; or had him killed, to clear the way to Alice Worthington's
side," exclaimed Witherspoon. "I see it all, now! Old Hugh intended
to marry this noble girl to our dead friend!"
But Jack Witherspoon only bowed his head and burst into bitter
tears. "Too late; too late!" he sobbed. The golden fortune seemed
stained with his dead friend's blood.
When the morning brought once more the refluent crowds to the
streets of New York, a thousand financial agencies over the world
were now eagerly watching for some trace of the fortune stolen from
the murdered cashier.
Police and detectives, the officers of justice in far cities and
foreign lands, were eagerly striving to gain the additional reward
of twenty-five thousand dollars offered by the Fidelity Company, at
Alice Worthington's order, for the detection of the secret murderers.
But to Witherspoon and Atwater the night had been one long vigil
of earnest conference.
Wearied out at last, Atwater decided the future policy of the two
friends. "Let Stillwell have his head, Jack," gravely advised the
doctor. "Keep your secret as yet. You know how that noble girl has
guarded her dying father's confidence. To save you, let me tell
her all, but only after the whole circle has failed to find the
murderers. I will not mention your name. But I will tell her that
poor Clayton left a will. I wish to see this million secured to
you.
"Then, when she promises to keep my secret, I will tell her of the
tell-tale Brooklyn address, and you and I can join her in hunting
down the gang who lured Clayton to his ruin. She is the one arbiter
of the situation; you and I must aid her. We will know all the
developments of the police inquest. In this way, Ferris will not
be alarmed. We may trace it home to him."
"You are right," assented Witherspoon, "and I will watch Ferris
through the office boy, Einstein, and there's a fine fellow, a
policeman, McNerney, down there. I've promised him a private reward
for any clue, and he told me he would lay off and go on a still
hunt.
"He knows how to communicate always with me," concluded Witherspoon,
"and I will bring him into our circle, if you can gain Alice
Worthington's confidence."
The great metropolis had almost forgotten Randall Clayton's
mysterious taking off, when, a week later, there was a sad gathering
in Woodlawn Cemetery, where Doctor Atwater supported on his arm
the black-robed figure of the great heiress, when the red earth
rattled down upon the murdered man's coffin.
There was a scanty two-score of mourners around the open grave;
but Atwater felt the nervous thrill of the girl's arm as she turned
away. "Justice to his memory, reparation for the past," murmured
Alice Worthington. "I leave the punishment of his betrayers to
the vengeance of the God above, the One who knows all."
It was with a thrill of coming triumph that Atwater listened to the
heiress when she drew him aside, in the great Stillwell drawing-rooms,
on their return.
"You were Randall's one true friend here," the noble girl cried.
"These great lawyers are bound up in the affairs of millions. My
friends, the executors, have given up all present hope; they must
return to Detroit; even Mr. Stillwell and the police authorities
are in despair.
"Mr. Witherspoon will be tied to the routine of the great business;
but you can aid me. Give me all your time, work with your friend,
for I will follow up this mystery until my foster-brother's name
is cleared of stain, and justice is done. Let us be a trinity of
faithful friends."
And thus it came to pass that Mr. Arthur Ferris lingered, shunned
by all his old associates, and busied about his private affairs.
Wandering about New York, he never knew of the ceaseless watch
upon him, his restless heart awaiting some new blow of the hostile
influence whose veiled stroke had ruined his brilliant prospects
in life! To his astonishment, he learned from Senator Dunham that
the entire secret programme of the company's vast interests had
been successfully carried out.
He veiled his defeat, in very shame, from the prosperous statesman,
and, a new disgrace, he now carried the brand of cowardice upon
him, for Witherspoon passed him daily with a contemptuous scorn.
And still, he dared not abandon his uneasy flitting about the
neighborhood of the company's office. His haggard face was now
known, even to Mr. Adolph Lilienthal.
The startled proprietor of the Newport Art Gallery had sealed up
all his vague suspicions in his guilty breast. He never dared to
confide even in Robert Wade, sneaking in furtively to the "private
view" gallery.
On one or two occasions, the anxious Ferris had buttonholed the
reinstated Wade, when the careful manager visited the "Art Gallery."
"Do they know anything?" muttered the frightened scoundrel. He
dared not even breathe Fritz Braun's name. After nights of weary
cogitation, Lilienthal had buried Irma Gluyas' baleful memory
forever.
"She cleared out a month before this strange murder," he was
forced to admit, "and Fritz Braun was off for Europe before this
deed. No; the poor fellow was either dogged from the office, or
else trapped on his way to the bank."
Lilienthal saw his own profitable schemes all endangered. "If I
owned up to a single scrap of information, if I were hauled into
any court proceedings, my secret patrons would take French leave
forever!"
And so, the prudent wretch merely adhered to his plain story that
he had sold the late Mr. Clayton an artist proof of the famous
Danube view. But, looking upon the unclaimed duplicate now in his
window, Lilienthal softly chuckled and rubbed his hands. "I am
a good two hundred and fifty ahead on that lucky picture." For
he could not find Miss Irma Gluyas to deliver to her the property
which was her own property.
Far away, by the shores of the yeasty Baltic, when Hugh Worthington
rendered up his repentant soul, two guilty ones stealthily regarded
each other's faces in the little hotel in Lastadie, where "Mr.
August Meyer" had taken refuge.
The huge "Mesopotamia" lay icily at her docks, and the graceful
woman had vanished from the cabins where her would-be betrayer had
watched her every movement. Fritz Braun's active mind had sounded
every danger now encircling his future pathway.
There was a circle of fire around him, though, as he kept hidden
in the little suburban hotel, where his smuggling confederates had
found him a safe refuge as their chief. The grinning head steward
had helped him smuggle his unsuspected booty on shore, and, while
Fritz Braun gazed moodily out of the windows of the old hostelry,
he planned his future hiding.
Neither the dangerous dupe at his side nor his hoodwinked associates
of the International Smuggling Association knew of the vast fortune
which Braun had artfully hidden upon his arrival.
Well he knew that his life would pay the penalty in a moment if
the blood-stained treasure were suspected to be in his hands.
And so, with careful craft, he labored to throw off all his
dangerous associates and quietly disappear to a retreat, already
decided upon, in the sleepy environs of Breslau.
"First, to watch my lady!" he decided, for he was not deceived by
Irma Gluyas' apparent quiet. His first care had been to obtain the
New York journals' regularly arriving. "If there is any hubbub over
there, I will be on guard, before they can reach me," he mused, as
he glowered over his wine at the woman who now panted for liberty.
Two weeks after his arrival passed with no detection of the murder.
"Safe, safe!" he laughed. "The trunk is now buried a hundred feet
deep in the ooze of the East River."
And he smiled in triumph at the precaution which had led to Leah
Einstein's hegira to her respectable First Avenue tenement, under
the decent alias of Mrs. Rachel Meyer.
He brooded, day by day, over the skill with which he had arranged
for cablegrams to a safe address. The innocent cipher arranged for
would warn him of all possible happenings.
And yet, at ease in his trust in the dumb fidelity of the distant
woman still his slave, he waited hungrily for the Magyar beauty to
trap herself. He was a man of infinite patience. Indulging every
seeming whim of his companion, he had never lost her from his sight
a moment since their arrival.
It was on the fourth day after their refuge in Stettin, when Fritz
Braun stole out of his rooms at a secret signal from Lena, the
"stube-madchen," whose frank face had won upon the secretly imprisoned
Irma.
"She gave me one of her diamond rings to pawn. I was to post this
letter and to send this telegraph dispatch to America," whispered
the girl. Fritz Braun smiled as he received the proofs of the
Hungarian's treachery.
And then, Lena sang over her drudgery for the next week, for the
grateful Braun had filled her hand with gold.
There was a strange gleam of contentment in Irma Gluyas' eyes
when she followed Fritz Braun, two weeks later, into the train for
Breslau. Her secret master had redoubled every tender care, and
there was a brooding peace between them.
But there were gloomy projects in his busy brain as Braun watched
the Baltic sand dunes fade away behind him. "She is deceived by my
manufactured telegram from Clayton. She will wait for his coming."
He laughed over the cunning which had bade her write or cable no
more. And, with a wildly loving heart now panting in her reassured
bosom, Irma Gluyas fell into a belief in Braun's story of their
flight from the revenue officials. "Thank Heaven, he is safe! He
loves me beyond all," mused the dreaming woman.
"He will get the letter left for him with the faithful girl, and
follow me on. Once that I am out of this man's clutches, Braun will
never dare to follow or claim me. For, he fears the Vienna police
as much as I."
Brave in her love, happy in her lover's safety, Irma Gluyas only
lived to meet once more the man who had awakened her nobler nature.
To be his slave, to drift down the years with him, was all she
asked; only to see his face again! She was held in Love's bondage
now!
And, wrapped in her dreams of the future, she forgot the man at her
side, who now compassed her death. "I must make my treasure safe
first," he craftily planned, "and then lose this hawk-eyed devil.
But only when my future is secure beyond all reach!"
With all his bridges burned behind him, Fritz Braun easily threaded
the network of railways of the Eastern German frontier.
For years he had studied over the hiding place upon the triangular
frontier of Poland, Germany, and Austria; and now, he only longed
for a freedom from Irma Gluyas' haunting eyes.
"Leah can join me later; but even she must not know of this fool's
fate!"
Safe in his own conceit, Fritz Braun drew happy breaths of relief
when he was safely hidden in the little village of Schebitz, under
the frowning crags of the Silesian Katzen Gebirge.
"Here we can rest in safety till the storm blows over," he said,
as Irma Gluyas followed him into the arched entrance of an old
half-forgotten manor house. "You shall have your books and music;
we can take a run whenever we like, and you shall have nothing to
fear, for my American friends will take care of me."
And then began the double duel of wits, in which, all innocent of
suspicion of danger, the woman whose soul was struggling toward
the light again, hid the darling secret of her heart--the coming
of the man who was to free her from the tyranny of her past sins!
"His love will find me out, even here," she murmured, as she listened
to the wild breezes sweeping down from the pine-clad mountains.
"And I shall live once more--a bond slave no longer!"
It was two weeks after their arrival when Braun felt safe to leave
his dangerous charge with the peasant spies whom he had gathered
as servants.
His money was safe, hidden in the old manor house; and he felt the
skies were clear when he entered the money-changers at Breslau,
where he cautiously sold some of his smaller bills.
On the table in the bank lay a copy of the New York Herald. His
stern face paled as he gazed upon the flaring head-lines. But the
audacious criminal's hand never trembled as he read the four columns
which blazoned the discovery of Clayton's body.
Fast as the devil drives he hastened back to his secret lair. One
friendly thrill warmed his agitated heart as he read Leah Einstein's
simple cipher words, in the cable which warned him of a new danger.
"I must soon be about my business," he gloomily decided. "This
Hungarian witch has some jewels left. It's only a few hours by rail
to the Russian frontier. She might, with her winning appearance,
easily find her way over the frontier of Poland. If she learned
of the discovery of Clayton's body, she might, in her love craze,
denounce me, even here. That would mean death for me; at the worst
only a short detention for her."
The fear of the old Vienna crimes now hardened the heart of the man
who was once the prosperous Hugo Landor. "SHE MUST DIE!" he cried
as he sentenced her remorselessly. "But how? There must be no
bungling!"
His whole nature was thrilling with the alarm of Leah Einstein's
warning. "She may have to clear out," mused the self-tortured
criminal. "Her only safe refuge is with me, and I could count on
her to help me clear away this wild-hearted Magyar devil."
Fear now kept him from any further unnecessary visit to Breslau.
He pondered a whole day, and then sent an unsigned cablegram,
addressed to the woman he had rebaptized as Rachel Meyer.
It was the simple phrase, "Schebitz-Breslau."
"Leah will know that I am here, and in any storm can join me."
With a sudden access of generosity, he sent the faithful ally of
his darkest day a secretly-purchased draft for two thousand marks.
And then the murderer forgot his danger, ignorant of one lonely
pursuer who followed up the blind trail of the murderer, now watching
Leah Einstein night and day.
It was twenty days later when the poor cobbler Mulholland, whistling
softly, went out and closed the door of his little shop opposite
Mrs. Rachel Meyer's modest apartment. The frightened woman had
only left her rooms at night after the publication of the finding
of Randall Clayton's body.
A horrible, haunting fear now possessed her. She knew the horror of
the deed. Stronger than the terror which bade her avoid the light
of day was the yearning to assure herself of the unruly boy's
safety. "If he is caught, God of Jacob!" she murmured, "I will end
my days in prison."
Even the hammering of the strange Irish cobbler in the noisy hallway
relieved her. She had never looked into that open door but a pair
of gleaming eyes had followed her every movement from under the
disguised policeman's bushy false beard.
"I think that I have the key of the mystery now," gleefully
soliloquized McNerney. "I am tired of playing cobbler Mulholland."
In fact, he needed time for rest and study.
A five-dollar bill had procured him the privilege of copying the
cablegram, when a telegraph boy had stumbled in, two weeks before,
to find Rachel Meyer.
The words "Schebitz-Breslau" had given him no clue; but on this
auspicious day the postman had begged him to aid him in finding
the proper party to receive a valuable registered letter.
The officer's quick eye caught the German stamp, "Value 2000 marks,"
and the words, "Absender, August Meyer." "This is the fellow at
last," muttered McNerney. "The man, August Meyer, who sends this
poor devil of a woman two thousand marks. She is preparing to skip
out. Now, for Mr. Lawyer Witherspoon!"
"The next time that this woman meets the boy, he must be arrested
on one corner by Jim Condon. I will seize upon her! Keeping them
separate and quiet, I may get the story. But I dare not tell the
chief, or I would lose the reward. Witherspoon must trust to me.
I must get that man over there."